Rumours that Channel 10 dating franchise “The Bachelor Australia” is in for a shake-up have been confirmed, with the network revealing there will be three main stars of the program this year, transforming it into “The Bachelors Australia”.
The program is now in its 10th year and has been suffering from declining ratings in recent seasons.
It was also recently revealed the program – produced by Warner Bros. International Television Production – would be relocating to the Gold Coast from its traditional Sydney home.
Channel 10 said with three “very different” Bachelors, and more female competitors than ever before, “The Bachelors Australia” will redefine the fairy-tale journey Australians have come to love.
The three men include 27-year-old Felix Von Hofe, a Melbourne basketball player and marketing manager. There’s also 25-year-old restaurant manager Thomas Malucelli, and 25-year-old musician Jed McIntosh.
The show has already commenced production and will once again be hosted by Osher Gunsberg.
As far back as 2017, then CEO of Network 10 Paul Anderson revealed both “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” franchises would need to evolve if they were to continue to bring in the record-setting viewing numbers of Sophie Monk’s season of that year.
Anderson said Monk was “real, if not slightly unusual”, and had taught the network a lesson on who to cast. Those learnings, he said, needed to be applied in order to move on from simply having “head-boy types” at the helm of the program.
“At the end of the day I think what we’ve proved over the past couple of years is that it’s all about the casting of that main role, and we’ve learnt some lessons and Sophie Monk, I think, was a good lesson for all of us, in terms of actually, you know – one, having someone in that role that is real, if not, slightly unusual,” he said at 2017’s Screen Forever conference.
“And I think without getting in too much trouble from my programming team, there needs to be some real colour and variation in the shows – picking the nice Bachelor, the ex head-boy is not going to sort of drive those shows into the future.”
After those comments, the franchise cast former Wallabies star Nick ‘Honey Badger’ Cummins into the leading role. His inconclusive season proved to be the highest-ratings male iteration of the series to date.
Since then, however, ratings have been on the decline for both “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette”.
The program did attempt to have multiple leads for “The Bachelorette” in 2020, with Elly Miles – herself a former contender on “The Bachelor” – and her sister Becky Miles.
Thus far, it is unclear how the format of this year’s “The Bachelors” will work, or if more casting diversity will be introduced to the franchise.
Channel 10 is also yet to reveal its plans for “The Bachelorette”.